Accepting nothing less than perfection

May 4, 2013

By John Goralski
Sports Writer

One pitch got away from Jordyn Moquin in her first game last week, and the hit batsman cost her a perfect game. She still managed a no-hitter, but that’s nothing new. Two days later, Moquin proved that with her third no-hitter of the season.
Hall managed to claw out two hits in Moquin’s third contest, but a Lady Knight miscue cost her a third shutout of the week.
The Knights are winning easily, but that’s not the focus of Coach John Bores. He’s looking toward the postseason, and trying to hone his team against a litter of lesser opponents. Winning isn’t enough. Bores wants perfection.
“Jordyn’s been terrific. She had two no-hitters and a two hitter. Our pitching has been great,” Bores said. “Defensively, we have a lot of enthusiasm. We’re just looking to have more consistency. It’s tough with our schedule.”
Bores is looking for a challenge, and that may be tough in Southington’s conference schedule. The early non-conference schedule offered a home-away series with Bristol Eastern and a 4-3 loss to Bristol Central in a gmae that featured a number of Southington mistakes.
Now comes the hard part. Southington needs to hone their skills for a postseason run during a conference schedule that seldom offers the challenge of a Bristol Eastern or Bristol Central. That’s why Bores is so critical even when his team wins easily.
“I want to see consistency,” he said. “I want to consistently win. I don’t want to give up any runs. I want to keep getting good pitching, and I want to be consistent 1-9 in the lineup. I’m looking for execution, I guess.”
That’s why the little mistakes irk him. The 25-0 win over NW Catholic on Monday was almost perfect. Moquin pitched four innings with just one hit batsman, and Kendra Friedt threw a perfect inning of relief.
Sarah Carangelo, Rachel Harvey, Natalie Wadolowski, and Caitlin Downes collected three hits apiece as Southington rallied for 25 runs in five innings on 24 hits. Harvey and Moquin hit homeruns. Wadolowski had two of Southington’s seven triples and one of their three doubles.
On Wednesday, the Knights scored another five-inning win with 12 hits in a 15-0 shutout win against Farmington. Moquin had 11 strikeouts with no hits. Moquin, Haley Arduini, Wadolowski, and downs had multiple hits, and the Knights put the game away with a seven run rally in the third inning.
But Bores focused on the fact that five players went hitless when 13 girls scored hits the game before. In a 10-1 win over Hall on Friday, Southington collected 12 hits, but only Kaitlin Paterson (3-for-4, 2 runs, 2 RBI) and Lauren Zazzaro (2-for-3, 1 run) scored multiple hits. Even worse, the defense committed two errors resulting in one unearned run.
“Some habits are hard to break, but I want this one broken…quickly,” he said. “We really hit the ball well on Monday and Wednesday, but today we were only so-so. Before today, we’ve been starting to play really good defensively, but we made a few errors. I’m not happy about that.”
Bores is, however, happy with his team’s 7-1 record to keep on pace for a No. 1 seed in the Class LL tournament. Now, he wants more.

By John GoralskiJordyn Moquin threw a pair of no-hitters last week to bring her season total to three.